Eli in the Scorch
by ImanSlytherin
Summary: SEQUEL FOR Eli: After waking up amidst people she didn't know- girls, Elizabeth got a note saying she couldn't tell anyone about her life in the Glade. How will she cope with being separated from the only type of home she has ever known? What will happen when they finally meet again?
1. 2 1 Group B

**A/N:** **Hello everyone and welcome to this first chapter of the _second installment_ of Eli's adventures in James Dashner's world (sly disclaimer heh). If you haven't read the first installment it's on this account entitled _Eli_ and complete. I tried to make sure there were no spoilers on the summary so yeah... **

**On another note, Ramadan Mubarak to those celebrating it (me included). This is to say that I'm not fully operational and updates will either be slow and well-written or quick and short. Monstrously short (which I personally hate). So since the customer is always right, what would you prefer? Slow-ass but well-written updates or the opposite? Your opinion means a lot to me (next update will be slow cause it's hot af and I'm fasting). Thanks again for your continued support and I hope you guys like this installment as much as you did the first one. Tschüss!**

* * *

 **2\. 1. Group B**

 _The black girl, who turned out to be Harriet, was breathing heavily as she sighed, "Hi. We have a lot to talk about, Newbie."_

I frowned suspiciously at them, "Who the hell are you?"

Harriet gave an exasperated sigh, "I'm Harriet. The little blonde is Sonya, the Asian is Borte, and that other one is Teresa. And you're Elizabeth, the Guinea Pig."

I blinked at the nickname, "The _what_?"

Borte squinted and tilted her head at me, "Maybe she has the tattoo as well."

"What tattoo?" I asked, growing frustrated with the lack of answer.

"Like the ones on our necks, or shoulders, depends on the girl. You can go check on the mirror," Borte explained as the pulled on her shirt to reveal a thin, black line going from the back of her neck to her collarbone.

I walked closer to her and read what the tattoo said: **«Borte Khan, WICKED Property, Subject B7»**. I frowned. She didn't have a nickname to go with.

"That's it? Subject B7? Why would I be the Guinea Pig, then?" I asked, not caring if I sounded accusatory.

The poor girl looked terrified as Harriet stepped over to, rather unceremoniously; pull the collar of my t-shirt, "There it is, the Guinea Pig. Now quit your whining and tell us what you know."

I gave her a sideways glance as I extracted myself from her grip and went to the bathroom to see for myself. Sure enough, there it was. The weird thing was that I was just **«Subject A»** instead of having a number to go with the letter. I wanted to interrogate them about nearly everything they knew, but I was outnumbered by more than a lot.

I stayed a little longer in the bathroom and heard Harriet address one of the girls, "You sure you don't know her? Says Subject A and you're Subject A1."

It was Teresa who replied, "For the tenth time, I don't shucking know her."

"Fine, no need to use the magic word," Sonya sighed before I heard a knock on the bathroom door, "everything okay in there?"

I opened the door and sighed, "Sure, I'm the Guinea Pig for some sort of test, what couldn't be okay?"

I looked around and Borte shot me a sympathetic glance, "You know, we're as confused as you are."

I eyed her suspiciously, "Really? You don't remember anything aside from your name? Cause that's my case."

Harriet threw her hands in the air, "Fudging peachy! Not only do we not have a scrap to eat, but there's also hanging bodies and we have to take care of a Newbie."

My eyes nearly fell out of their sockets, "Hanging bodies? And what's that thing about food, how long have you all been here?"

"Quiet, Ginny, we're asking the questions in here," Harriet stated patronizingly.

I raised an eyebrow at her, "First off, it's Eli. Second, you probably won't mind me asking questions since I don't know a single fucking thing!" I ended my sentence in a bellow, which relieved me surprisingly well from the stress of the situation.

She merely smirked at me, "Feisty. I'm sure we can make something of you, Ginny."

I rolled my eyes at her and walked past them all to the next room. I was not prepared for what awaited me outside. The hanging bodies were one thing that I could live with, smell and all, but the thirty girls that looked at me as though I had three heads raised a feeling of anxiety within me that I couldn't shake off. I paused in my tracks and gave a flitting look around the faces without registering any of them.

That was, until my gaze fell on a blonde, light brown eyed girl who looked about thirteen or maybe twelve. Her eyes, though lighter in color, were unmistakably familiar. The way her anxious frown took over every single one of her features sold her out.

I knew who this girl was, and before I could stop myself I murmured, "I think I know you…" earning myself more than thirty incredulous stares.

I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole, then and there. I was gradually blowing my cover, but I was practically certain that she was the sister Newt remembered. She was the right age and looked much like him. In any case, it was a bad idea to voice it and my mind raced to catch up on my blunder as Harriet pushed past the girl-Gladers towards me.

"What was that?" She asked in such a commanding tone I was certain she was born with a gun in her hand.

My mouth gaped, fishing for words, "I— I think I know her. She feels familiar."

The leader raised a doubtful eyebrow, "Right, so… stick with Tony since you seem to know her well. The rest of us are gonna have a little group chat. Oh, by the way, I hope you're not hungry because we haven't had food for three days."

"What?" I interjected, abashed.

"You hungry or not?" Harriet insisted.

My stomach suddenly felt as empty as the Box on a non-delivery day. My lips parted before I wet them nervously, "Well, I'm not hungry but I'm not exactly sated either..."

Harriet pinched the bridge of her nose as I was uncomfortably aware of all the girls' gazes resting on me, "You should go to sleep. You won't think of hunger if you go to sleep."

It didn't sound like a request or advice, so I automatically made my way towards the room I had woken up in. Teresa was still at the door, with Sonya carrying a mattress out of it— a mattress?

I squinted at her, "What're you doing?"

"You didn't think you'd carry on sleeping in there, did you?" She mused with a smirk that made her eyes twinkle a dark shade of silver.

"Why not?" I asked, folding my arms over my chest and hearing the click on my right shoulder, which was the only reminder of my injury.

"Because whether you like it or not," Harriet spoke up next to me, "you're one of us now. And we're as weak as we're divided, so you sleep in the dormitory with us."

"It's all the more reason since the door you came from wasn't here yesterday," Borte added nonchalantly.

I blinked, "You mean it was locked, right?"

She shook her head briefly, her bangs following the movement ever so slightly, "No. I mean that instead of a door, the wall continued along the room until that metal door over there."

I immediately turned to the cherry red door which bore a mockingly massive padlock. I scowled at the object and sighed before sweeping the room with my eyes until they landed on probably the youngest among them— most likely eleven or twelve.

She looked me up and down and decided, "You're weird."

I merely raised an eyebrow at her, "Cool."

She left without another word and I felt an arm falling over my shoulders. I glared at Harriet and extracted myself from her hold, "You need sleep for sure. Tony, stick with her."

Tony nodded briefly, "All right."

She didn't seem to have much of an accent, though I couldn't tell from just two words. While we were speaking, Sonya had made quick work of my mattress. There were several beds in the room, but only two mats on the floor, one next to the other. The first one on the right had already been slept in, so I figured the other one was mine. I dragged it across the room where I wouldn't be surrounded by too many people.

As I turned around, I saw Tony surveying me, looking rather interested. I pressed my lips together to hide any hostility I might've been showing —my neutral expression, as Frypan once pointed out, was that of an angry Griever—, but she merely nodded and went back to bed. I lied down and turned away from the others.

* * *

 _"Hey, Eli!" I turned around and saw Clint jogging towards me, looking breathless._

 _"What is it?" I asked, stopping on my way to the kitchen._

 _"Nick's sick again, I don't know what's up with him," he seemed helpless._

 _"What are the symptoms, this time?"_

 _"His pulse is way too quick, and he's drenched in sweat," Clint scratched his temple, on a spot that had turned more white than it was gray. He must've had pretty klunky genes to look like a grandpa at barely twenty._

 _My breath caught in my throat. The feeling that clawed at my chest was heavy and painful, yet felt eerily familiar. I meant to speak but no sound came out of my throat, and I felt as though I started becoming omniscient to the conversation…_

I was jolted awake by a muffled sound right next to my head. I sat up immediately and saw a mattress upon which Tony was lying down, her forearm on her forehead and each of her breaths heaved like a quiet sigh. She must've fallen asleep right when she lied next to me.

Despite her being probably younger than me, I felt somewhat intimidated by her potency as a character contrarily to her brother of whom I had always felt irrationally protective. I mean, he was most likely older than me, and obviously more experienced than I was, but I had the irrational feeling that I ought to protect him. I didn't have any memories to link that feeling to—

 _Yet,_ a strange voice taunted in the back of my mind. I realized it was masculine.

 _What?_ I tried getting another response to my thoughts, but I didn't hear —could I call it hearing?— anything anymore. I was too sleepy to give it further thought, and so I gave in to my bout of slumber again.

* * *

"Hey, wake up Ginny!" A still-unfamiliar voice jolted me out of my sleep for the second time since I had woken up in this bunker.

I grunted and sat up, grumbling, "What?" Only when I opened my eyes did I see that Harriet was munching on a cereal bar. I frowned, "I thought you had no food."

She shrugged, crouching beside me, "Didn't until this morning. Ana found a pile of food on her way to the bathroom, along with something else. Which makes me wonder, are you sure you don't know anything?"

I averted my eyes from her piercing dark ones as I frowned, "Yes I'm sure. All I remember is my name and what happened yesterday, well not all of it."

She eyed me suspiciously before presenting me with a pear, "Hungry?"

I accepted the fruit and stared at her quizzically, "You said there was something else…"

She stood up and gave me a hand I accepted, "We don't exactly know what to think of it, really. Last time we saw a guy it was Aris, after those who rescued us ushered him to his room—"

"A guy?" I couldn't keep my excitement from showing, and she had slightly-too-sharp eyes.

"Don't get too excited, all right? Guys aren't always good news, plus this one looks kind of like an old ferret," Harriet warned as she opened the door to the main room.

In the middle of the room sat a huge pile of food of all types. Even chocolate, as it happened. Seeing all the girls trying not to stuff their faces with food, I realized I wasn't as hungry as they were— or had been until this morning. I decided to wait before eating more than the pear Harriet had handed me.

Looking around the room, I realized the pile of food wasn't the only change. The door to the room I had emerged from had disappeared, just like Borte told me it had appeared yesterday morning. The door to Teresa's room was still there for some reason, but I didn't question it. The biggest change, aside from food, was the neatly arranged backpacks and weapons on the wall between Teresa's room and the dormitory. I made my way towards the overly-tempting arsenal when something most unexpected happened. I hit my chest, and then my nose, and then the rest of my body against a smooth, cool, and see-through surface. I was so taken aback that I fell entirely on my back and my vision went black for a few moments.

When I blinked again, a tall figure was smirking down at me, "We've all been there at some point," she extended a helping hand that I accepted, "I wouldn't advise you to go near our new friend's desk either, he's protected like we're gonna bloody murder him."

The fall had taken me aback, but how much she resembled Newt in her personality downright shocked me. As I stood up, I noticed that she was quite a few inches taller than I was and that she would probably arrive until under Newt's chin. I thought I had been surrounded by tall people, when I was in the Glade, but it turned out that I was the short person.

I looked back at the weapons longingly, "I wanted to check them out… hey you have an accent!" Only then did I realize that she had addressed her first sentence to me.

Tony chuckled, "Yeah, I have a bit of an accent. Couldn't notice it cause I have a temper when I get too hungry."

I chuckled as well, this situation felt eerily familiar, "Thank God they brought food, then."

She folded her arms over her chest and her t-shirt shifted ever so slightly around her hipbone that it showed a scar. It was a scar I had seen quite a few times in my days as a Med-jack, and I was shocked to see it on her. Tony had been stung by a Griever…

I was so surprised to see her bearing that scar that I completely forgot about my acting. She noticed me looking and, instead of hiding her exposed skin, lifted her shirt for me to see the whole thing. It was like a black spider web across her lower half, at the middle of which was a distinctly white scar where she had been stung.

After I asked her how she got that scar, she settled on explaining to me about the Glade and the Maze and all that pertained to the jobs around it and such things. I acted oblivious, of course, as though she were teaching me all about the world that mirrored mine so eerily. What flipped me more was that I felt like a Greenie again with a friendly, British person to show me around. We composed ourselves a copious breakfast and sat a little ways from the others, as she told me about life in the Glade.

She was a Runner too, as it happened, before she got stung and decided to join their team of Baggers. I said «Runner» and «Baggers» but their Glade had other names for the jobs just as they had a different sort of slang. Instead of «shuck», for example, they said «fudge»; and for «shank» they used the term «stick», which confused the klunk out of me.

The more I learned about the girls' Glade, the more I felt a sort of patriotism towards the one I had learned to love. The worst part of being away, and I felt it when Tony started reminiscing about the early days in Group B's Glade, was that I started missing my friends and the place I had learned to cherish. I tried my best to hide my sourness as I nodded her on to telling me more, as much as I wanted her to slim it and tell me something useful.

The occasion came when Borte called us, "Hey, our new companion has something to say apparently. Come on."

When Tony stood up, I expected her to limp, but I had a rude awakening as she sprang up easily and somewhat gracefully. I followed her, a hollowed hole slowly but painfully digging its way through my chest. I must've looked sad, for Borte to insist I sit beside her.

I sat cross-legged, as did everyone else in a semi-circle around the would-be corner of the room —it was oval-shaped—. At that spot sat a hardwood desk in front of which a man was leaning back, arms and ankles crossed. He was tall —then again, everyone was tall compared to me— and wore a white suit, tie and all. He had barely-noticeable glasses resting on his slightly crooked nose, and as Harriet said he looked kind of like a rodent. He was scanning the others' faces with a look of frustration until his eyes landed on me and, shockingly, he sent me a warm smile.

"Elizabeth," he spoke for the first time in a slight drawl, making literally everyone turn to me.


	2. 22 Phase Two

**2\. 2. Phase Two** **  
**  
 _"Elizabeth," he spoke for the first time in a slight drawl, making literally everyone turn to me._

I felt my cheeks heat up dangerously as I tried to make out his features, "Do I know you?"

He inhaled sharply, as though about to answer from the top of his head, but remained silent before sighing and turning to the others, "Welcome, Group B. You are all here thanks to your incredible survival skills, and I am glad to see that you have suffered less losses than Group A—"

"How many of Group A are still alive?" I couldn't help but ask. Immediately, I shrank and felt my cheeks heat up as I muttered, "Never mind, keep going."

"For your information, Miss Tudor," he spoke, dragging out on my name, "there are twenty remaining subjects in Group A. Now be kind enough not to interrupt me again during my speech."

Once again, I wished for the ground to open and gulp me down like a sip of water. I hugged my knees and barely listened as he talked about the survival of humanity and some kind of virus or something. What did catch my attention was the fact that every single one of us had been "infected" and that we would have to walk a good few miles past some mountains to get a cure...

I looked around and saw various emotions across the girls' faces: shock, a sort of betrayal, distress, curiosity, some angry faces here and there, and even a tad bit of confusion. At that point, and after having been reminded that I'd been extracted from the only home I'd ever known and that I wasn't even allowed to talk about it, I didn't much care if I had cancer or AIDS; I just wanted to see my friends again.

Twenty remaining Gladers could mean literally anything. I didn't know how much time had passed since the last Greenie I remembered— was it that hunky guy who Winston said liked blood? It could've been one month as much as it could've been a whole year or more from my last memory to now. The twenty survivors could very well be completely foreign to me— All right, maybe not all of them. I was pretty sure some would have survived.

Alby, for instance. He was the leader, everyone's pillar in the Glade. If he... if ~he~ didn't make it out, then who the hell would have? Minho. Minho would have, more than anybody else. He was a shucking Runner, the Keeper even. And neither of them would ever leave Newt behind or let him down. They were the trinity, as Winston had referred to them, they went together no matter what. Speaking of Winston, I was pretty sure he and Gally would be able to fend for themselves— together or on their own. I didn't worry about Clint or Frypan, and I knew... hold up, what about Nick?

I made to speak up but I refrained myself at the last second. I'd have to ask that girl —Teresa— if she saw a toddler in the Glade. If she did, then it would mean that Alby had agreed to show Nick to the rest of the Glade— just then, I frowned remembering my dream of last night. Nick _was_ revealed to the rest of the Glade. I knew it because Clint had told me —and he wasn't supposed to know about him— in broad daylight, not caring if anyone heard him. She _must have_ seen Nick. I _had_ to ask her—

My thoughts were interrupted by someone nudging me on my right. I turned to Borte who indicated the man with her eyebrows and my eyes followed. He hadn't shifted from his position and only then did I notice the full-to-the-bursting manila folder on the desk. He had a stern look on his ferrety face that reminded me of a teacher who was literally done with the distracted student. He raised his eyebrows intently at me and I felt my cheeks heat up so much I was sure I'd start tearing blood any second if he kept his gaze.

Thank God, though, he turned away and kept on talking about a special mission that we had and that Group A wasn't officially informed about. He kept on harping about the importance of the mission and the fact that it had to be done or we wouldn't receive the cure after having crossed the miles and mountains.

"The mission, ladies, is to help Subject A1 kill Subject A2, also known as Teresa and Thomas respectively. You are not to interfere with the mission, and you are to do anything to assist Teresa in..."

 _"What's your name?" I asked, making him frown and the children surrounding us laugh._

 _He blinked twice, "I'm Thomas."_

I had dreamed about a Thomas. He had been my friend once. Of course, it could've been another Thomas, but my gut told me it was the very same one.

Before I could help myself, I piped up, "Why do we have to kill him?" This time, I didn't shy away when he tried to glare at me.

"First of all, _Teresa_ must kill him. Second of all, she will tell you why he should be killed. And third of all, what part of 'not interrupting me again' do you not understand?" His voice was velvety but his tone was cold, and I should've probably shrunk between my inmates but I didn't.

And do you know that feeling of complete indecency? Like, things happening at the exact moment in which they shouldn't? Yeah, that. That was what happened at that moment with the malfunction on the filter for my mouth.

When I should've shut up, my mouth and brain decided to be witty by saying, "The part about murdering someone. That's what I don't understand."

Literally every head turned to me, including Teresa's, and then Ferret-Guy did the most unexpected thing: he smirked at me as though he were proud of what I'd done. "Well well, Miss Tudor. Not out of wit, are we?"

I swallowed hard when I realized he expected me to answer, "I won't do something wrong with no valid reason, sir. It's against my personal ethics."

"You may call me Mr. Janson," he then raised an eyebrow at me, surveying me from head to folded legs, "Hold on to your... personal ethics, Elizabeth. They might just prove to be your salvation."

I frowned, then. "Janson," I muttered. The name sounded vaguely familiar, and it kept nudging at the back of my mind like I should know who it was just by hearing it.

***

That night, the girls feasted on some of the seemingly endless pile of food, but I was in no mood to eat like a pig. I took a bag of cereals and some dried fruits, mixed them together, and then sat in front of the weaponry wall, which still wasn't unlocked.

Janson said that it, along with a portal whose name I'd forgotten, would only be free tomorrow morning at six. The portal would close after fifteen minutes, given our large number; but the weaponry would be unlocked ten minutes before the portal opened, and would not be locked again. In all, we would have twenty-five minutes to choose our weapons (for those leaving last), and fifteen minutes to leave.

Of course, leaving was optional. You could leave this facility at the given time, or you could die in horrible conditions. Seemed fair. I had yet to find out what the dangers were, aside from the deadly virus we were presumably infected with. I frowned at the thought: learning this should've panicked me at the very least, but I felt eerily detached from the situation.

I was thinking about that while munching on almonds and sitting cross-legged in front of the weaponry when I felt someone sitting next to me, "What are you up to?" I turned and saw someone I hadn't yet spoken to.

My eyebrows jumped, "Choosing my weapon. What about you?"

Teresa sighed, "Trying to cope with the fact I'm expected to kill a guy in two weeks at most."

I shrugged, "Is he that bad? Thomas?" I asked, trying to slyly make her talk about the Glade after I left.

Her lips parted and her piercing blue eyes focused on a spot on the linoleum floor as though she were trying to remember the guy, "I uh... he did something I can't forgive."

From her tone of voice, I could guess she didn't want to expand on the subject. I couldn't care less about that boy, to be honest, I only wanted to know about my friends but I had to be inconspicuous in doing so.

I noticed she wasn't carrying any food and so I tilted my bag of cereals-and-dried fruit towards her as an invitation to share, but she shook her head, "No, thank you."

I rolled my eyes ever so slightly, I hoped she didn't notice. "What was it like, in the boys' Maze, anyway?"

She gave me a sideways glance before extending her left hand towards my bag of cereals and taking a handful, then she started picking each flake with her right hand and eating them one by one. "I don't remember much, I was in coma for a week and we escaped a few days after that."

I shrugged hopelessly, "What were the few days like?" I insisted. I needed news about my friends.

She gave a frustrated sigh and looked back at the pack of girl-Gladers. Among them were the few faces whose names I knew: Tony, Harriet, Sonya, and Borte... the others, I hadn't met yet. Looking at them, interacting with one another and seeming so much like a family— no, they seemed more like a _clan_ than anything else. And glancing at Teresa and me, sitting apart from them, I realized how much of outcasts we were. It was Group B, and then us. The only representatives of Group A. Of course, no one knew I had experienced the Glade and the Maze, and it had to stay that way.

Teresa shook me out of my reverie as she cleared her throat and popped another cereal flake into her mouth, "You spent the day with Tony, right? I'm sure she told you what it was like in the Glade. Well imagine the very same, except with boys instead of girls, and there you have it." She turned to me, her icy blue eyes strict, "Is that fine?"

I gulped. It was most certainly _not_ fine. I wanted to know if my friends were alive, but she had derived the subject. I'd have to try her later, but for now a nod and a tight smile was enough to reassure her. We kept on eating silently, now facing Group B instead of the weaponry. I observed as Sonya peeled a banana and handed it to the little girl who had deemed me "weird" the other day— or had it been yesterday? I didn't know anymore.

Time seemed to extend and condense as I tried to make out when exactly was the last time I'd gone to the Deadheads for my research. It seemed so pointless now that we were out of the Glade and facing a new type of danger to which we'd have to adjust quickly. I still didn't understand why we would need the weapons. I turned to ask Teresa but when I did, I saw something most unexpected. Her eyes were full of tears, though she didn't look sad at all. She was frowning in the distance and I thought she might be frustrated.

"You miss them, don't you?" I asked, trying to be smooth about the whole thing. I didn't know yet if she was a crying pansy or if she tried playing "tough shank", so I needed to be evasive.

She shook her head, "Not so much, actually. I haven't known them long enough for that."

 _Tough shank, then,_ I thought.

"Oh," was all I said before grasping at the occasion to get information, "Why would we even need the weapons? I mean, Janson only talked about solar stuff. The most we'd need for that is a good brand of sunscreen."

She chuckled, trailing off before giving me a shocked glance, "Wait, you're serious? He talked about the virus. The Flare. We're all infected but it'll take two weeks to get into our system. The worst cases are dangerously crazy and beyond repair, the only way away from them is to kill them. They're not human anymore, if that makes sense."

I hadn't realized my jaw was slack until I had to swallow, which I did with some difficulty. "You mean to say that it's the actual zombie apocalypse out there?" I sighed and muttered, "What a time to be alive."

"It's a pity you had to wake up to this, really. Aren't you getting memories in your sleep? Thomas used to." Teresa murmured secretively.

I was about to answer when Harriet called lights out saying we'd need all the sleep we can get. I went back to my mattress at the back end of the dormitory and fell into a sleep like death.

***

It was nearly six in the morning and the girls were busy packing for the next fifteen days. Harriet, Sonya, and Borte were making sure there was no pushing and arguing concerning the distribution of the weapons and backpacks. Harriet had made Teresa and me go first to "get us out of the way", and so it was that we were loading food before everyone else.

When I checked, my backpack contained two empty flasks that seemed to keep approximately one liter each, a matchbox, a flashlight, hair ties, pads, a...

 _A cape?_ I wondered as I held it up, _what is this, Hogwarts?_

I shrugged it off and saw that the rest was enough empty space to store food for weeks. That backpack would not be a treat to carry but it had all the essentials for this trial. And, of course, I had my weapon. I had chosen a two-foot-long machete whose leather sheath I had attached to my belt. The hilt was made of black rubber and dented so as not to slip from sweaty hands, which I believed was a constant risk in a flared world such as the one we were about to be dumped into.

It was ten minutes later that the portal to the outside, which was also called a Trans-Flat as Borte reminded me when we were waiting for our turn to shower, opened. Harriet went first, calling everyone packed to follow her and telling Sonya to stay last to make sure every girl got out.

I was the third one to go through the gray, shimmering door. A mist of ice ran through my whole body as I walked through and, to my slight panic, was greeted by nothingness.


	3. 2 3 The Scorch Trials

**Hiiii, after literal years, I am back with a new, albeit short, chapter. I took back an interest in my fanfictions when I realised that it wasn't fair to my readers not to finish them when they were already mapped out in my mind. (Plus, there's a twist in this story that I am anxious to introduce and wrap up because it's literally why I started this story in the first place.) So, I hope you enjoy! Thank you for sticking around.**

2.3. The Scorch Trials

"Guys?" I called, trying not to sound as anxious as I felt.

"We're right here, Ginny," Harriet called back before I heard fiddling through a backpack, "you might wanna step aside to let the others get in here, you know?"

I advanced with my hands extended in order not to bump too violently against Teresa or Harriet, "What are you doing?"

"Searching for a snack," was her sarcastic reply before adding, "looking for a flashlight, of course. And—" she dragged out the word "— here it is!"

The first thing I saw was all six of our boots, and then Harriet helped Teresa look for her own flashlight. Before I could even unzip my backpack, Harriet told me that two torches would be enough given that we had to save up batteries and we didn't know how long the tunnel extended for.

Teresa and I went ahead while Harriet waited at the entrance to greet the newcomers and tell them to get on our trail. The walk was wordless as we tried not to go too far from the group, in case something happened to split us. And, judging from our past experiences with WICKED, this was more than likely their style.

One after the other, and during approximately fifteen minutes, we heard girls stumbling through the Trans-Flat and into the tunnel, then following Harriet's lead towards us as we marched on. Borte was quick to join us and silently keep us company as Teresa lit the grimy and seemingly endless tunnel.

It took a while, but as we heard Sonya get in, Harriet called a stop in order to make sure everyone was here. She made a roll call, ending with Teresa and me, and then decided we could continue on at a faster pace and following her own lead this time.

I really have nothing to say about the walk: it was dull, tiring, and dark apart from the three or four flashlights. The only particularity was the distant screams that we heard at some point, perhaps around noon but checking my watch wasn't on my priorities list as I tried to make out the voice. Of course, I couldn't, it was too far away to even discern the gender or age of the person.

Twelve hours and two food breaks later, Harriet told us to find a good spot to sleep in and call it a night —not forgetting to set our watches to ring at six in the morning—.

We kept this pattern going for two more days until we found a flight of stairs leading upward. Harriet made us stop as we arrived at the first step, and then went up while lighting her way.

"There's a trapdoor," she announced, "someone climb up, help me open it."

Teresa trotted up before Sonya, who was quite muscular for being a runner, could even react. A few girls started muttering about how Teresa was bossing over them even though she had only been with them for less than a week, and I understood them. It was as if a Greenie would want to be a Keeper or a Runner: completely crazy and unrealistic.

I was on Harriet's heels the whole walk, so I was also at the foot of the stairs when they opened the trapdoor, "Remember, he said there were solar flares. So the first rays of sunlight might literally burn us. Everyone split, down there. Stick to the walls."

We all split like the Red Sea, leaving empty space in the middle. We held our breaths as Harriet and Teresa grunted under the weight of the creaking metal door… only to be greeted by a fine mist of moonlight. Close to thirty breaths were released as the leader and the brunette used all of their strength to fully open the trapdoor.

"We're lucky, that way we can get gradually used to the sunlight," Sonya muttered as she walked past me, up the stairs.

I subconsciously let them all get our before I finally decided to follow. I had to wrap my mind around the fact that I was about to see the ~real world~ for the very first time in all my memories. From the Glade and the Maze, to the smaller Maze in my dream, and finally the dorm I woke up in a few days ago.

I hadn't realized how long I had been hesitating when Tony's head stuck in from outside, "Come up! It's not like you're gonna miss it, in there, is it?"

"I— I've never been outside before," I muttered stupidly.

I couldn't see her face from the moonlight behind her, but she must've been frowning as she came down the steps, "The heck did you say? Couldn't hear you from up there."

"I've never been outside before. In the real world," I restated, frustrated.

Facing me, I could distinguish her scrunched up features, "That's what you're worked up about?" Tony chuckled disbelievingly before flinging her arm over my shoulders and pushing me forward, "Really nothing interesting about this world, especially the part we were dropped in. Just a bunch of crank-infested desert, let's go before they leave us alone. They're jogging so that we cover more field during the night as we believe it'll be bloody difficult during the day."

Indeed, the group was ahead by a couple of yards already when we emerged, and all around us was a stretch of scorched land with a few rocks here and there. Our destination was a few miles ahead, and before the mountains stood a city whose tallest skyscraper was shorter than my thumb.

I looked up at the sky and was amazed by the much more consequent number of stars and the moon filling the sky lit the land like an enormous spotlight set on us. I remembered something Tony had told me about a gray sky during their time in the Glade, which meant that even the sky was manufactured. This meant that I was looking at the real sky for the first time as well.

As Tony and I sprinted to catch up with the others, I felt something very different from what I thought I'd feel if I left the relative safety of the Glade. I felt a weird sort of freedom, sort of giddy —which was positively outrageous as the world was dying—, but I loved the feeling. I embraced it as we slowed to a jog when we were among the girls again.

To keep myself from getting tired, I quickly adopted a rhythm which consisted in two points, one: I had to avoid hearing my own breathing. Two: releasing breath when my left foot hit the ground worked better than the opposite, and avoided cramps.

It was apparently close to dawn, when we had gotten out of the tunnel, for barely an hour later the stars started disappearing, the sky's colour went from black to marine blue to the most beautiful kind of gray I had ever seen. I spared a breath to ask Tony if the gray of the Glade sky was similar to this one, but she tsk'ed as if I had just asked the stupidest question ever.

The sun was a pain to endure. We all put on our capes, whose fabric was light yet opaque and provided a fair amount of shade. I wondered if the boys had all the tools we were given, but that was just a passing thought. When our watches showed 3p.m., Harriet said we should all try to get some sleep in order to be rested at nightfall and ready to run.

We took up nearly fifty square yards of sleeping heaps space, using our backpacks as pillows and setting our alarms for four hours later.

For the second time since I woke up, I had a vivid dream.

 _I was in the Medwing, a tiny heap of animal flesh and even tinier wires and drills were the components of my work. I tested each wet element with some medicines like crushed pills distilled in a drop of water, only enough to activate the effects of the pills but none had come into effect yet. I took a longing look at the Grief Serum boxes, which Clint had deemed off-limits concerning my research._

 _I was highly tempted to sneak one and use its contents, seeing as it was the only thing I hadn't tried out yet. When I was done deciding, someone most unexpected barged in through the door of the Medwing._

 _I looked back, expecting a patient, but my visitor was actually a much smaller and cuter person, "Nicky, what're you doing here? I thought you were in Alby's class."_

 _"I ran away," he replied excitedly, "what you doing here, Lily?"_

 _I held his hand, which was reaching for the torn-apart Beetle Blade, and kissed his small knuckles as I crouched to his level, "I'm working here. Trying to figure out what makes gladers sick in the Deadheads." I had abandoned baby-talking to Nick so that he could learn to talk like everyone else because, despite being cute, be couldn't get himself understood easily by the others which frustrated both parties._

 _"They get sickies in the woods?"_ _Nick asked, baffled._

 _I shrugged and uselessly tried to fix his spiked up hair, "Some have, and it's my job to make sure we know how to cure them, understand?"_

 _He didn't have time to answer as the door banged open to two boys carrying an unconscious Jackson. My attention immediately went to him as I fired questions at the boys in order to know what he had and how to cure him, completely forgetting about Nick._

"Wake up, Eli, it's time to leave, you can eat a bit or drink on the way," Borte, the ever quiet and soft, murmured to me.

"On the way where?" I asked groggily as I took the cape off of my body and started folding it.

"Ana found a shack, not far from here. Sonya thought it might contain something helpful, like a map or whatever, but Harriet says we have to be ready to fight in case something dodgy is happening in there. I say it won't cost us to check whatever's in there and be on our way afterwards."

I frowned, "How about we ignore it and go get freaking cured instead?"

She half-smiled at me condescendingly, "You wouldn't have survived the Maze with this mentality."

 _You'd be surprised,_ I wanted to mutter, but I abstained and followed her lead.

The shack was really nothing much, just a cube of concrete with a metal door from afar. But up close, we could distinguish something that looked like a loudspeaker above the door. So electricity was still a thing around the world, then...

Once inside, there was a table upon which rested a word in a folded paper addressed to Teresa. Upon Harriet's insistence, she read it aloud and I thought I was going to throw up in envy. She would get to see that Thomas boy and lead him into a trap or something, but we weren't— I mean she wasn't going to end him just yet.

While she got to confuse him, we all would have to wait in the back room and attack in case something were to go wrong.

I still didn't know who to side with if things turned sour, on one hand: These girls considered me one of them immediately and close to trusted me. On another hand: The boys felt like family, it wouldn't do to betray them for a bunch of girls I'd only just met. On a third hand: I wasn't even sure if the boys that Teresa met were the boys that I had lived with. They could've been completely different people, and I didn't just think about character development. It was difficult to come to terms with, but my friends might all have been dead by then. Just then, I realised how much hope I had put into the fact that my friends were alive, when they might just be memory by then. I had the deranged idea to take advantage of the time during which Teresa took talking to Thomas to try to peek at the rest of the boys, but Harriet's eyes, when not on Teresa, rested on me. There was no was no way for me to satisfy my curiosity. The wait for the short-term mission was, therefore, dull.

After all was said and done between Teresa and Thomas, and the boy-gladers were on their ways off, Harriet deemed the shack a good place to sleep in. The night was coming to an end, and trying to walk long distances during the day was far from being a good idea. Our watches were set to ring at 3p.m., in order for us to take full advantage of the time that we had. My sleep was, for once, dreamless; and I wouldn't have it any other way.


End file.
